“AI is amazing,” Antione told the gathered audience of potential technological enthusiasts. “It can do anything! It knows everything! Never again shall we have to think and wonder when we can simply ask and know!”
There was a moment of awed silence that went on for quite a bit longer than Antione was expecting.
“So, c’mon kids, you must have something you want to ask it?”
“Dad, we’re playing with the campfire,” Claire said, as her and Daniel poked it with sticks and sent great clouds of smoke billowing through the cave. “We don’t have time to talk to a creepy dead doll with a phone in its skull.”
“It’s not creepy,” Antoine said. “I thought you liked dolls.”
“Wait, that doll’s yours?” Tina said. “I thought it was something Claire had stolen from the witch’s house.”
“I don’t steal things,” Claire said. “I take them.”
“That’s the same thing,” Ethel said.
“You’re the same thing,” Claire said.
“Maybe,” Antoine said, trying to return the topic of conversation back to its original path. “We could ask the AI whether stealing and taking are the same thing.”
“Couldn’t you just ask us, Dad?” Tina said. “Because we all know the answer to that. Even Claire knows. She just pretends she doesn’t.”
“I don’t pretend anything,” Claire said. “I just DO!”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” Ethel said.
“You don’t make any sense,” Claire said.
“Maybe we could just ask the…”
“Shut up, Dad!”
“Claire! Don’t you dare tell dad to shut up!”
“I can tell who I want to shut up!”
“No you can’t!”
“CAN!”
“CAN’T!”
“Daniel,” Antoine said quietly. “I bet you’ve got a question or two about things, right?”
“In the mouth of the cavern a dragon sleeps,” Daniel said, throwing a pinecone onto the fire to make it belch flames and smoke out again. “And in the dragon’s mouth there’s a cavern you can sleep in.” Daniel looked up from the flames and stared through the smoke at Antoine. “So how do we know if we’re the dragon in the cave or the cave in the dragon?”
Antoine looked back through the smoke at Daniel.
“That question was for the doll,” Daniel added.
“Oh right,” Antoine said, slightly relieved, “Er, did you hear that, little dollAI? Are we the dragon in the cave or the cave in the dragon?”
The doll did not respond.
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Notes:
1. Written on 26th May, 2023
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